A thorough electrification of society is crucial for the green transition of Danish society and CO2 emissions must be reduced. However, this also means that the electricity grid is facing a major task when it has to handle a significantly larger amount of electricity than before.
This obviously requires major investments and, according to the EWII Group, it also requires larger investments than expected.
- When the full picture of electrification is included, and where not only transport but also industry is looked at, the investment need in the electricity grid increases significantly, explains EWII's CEO, Lars Bonderup Bjørn.
- The good news is that if we do it wisely with increased use of flexibility and increased capacity utilization in the electricity grid, we can probably keep the tariff stable, it says.
New assessments from EWII's electricity grid company TREFOR El-Net show that electrification requires investments of a whopping 6.4 billion kroner. DKK by 2040 – more than twice as much as TREFOR El-Net previously estimated. The last time the company calculated on the subject, it was estimated that it required investments of DKK 2.8 billion by 2040, while it is now estimated that DKK 3.1 billion will need to be invested by 2030 alone.
It is, among other things, the great progress for heat pumps, electric boilers and Power-to-X that has increased the need for more investments in the electricity grid. Electricity will soon be used for both industry, heavy transport and shipping, and this increases both the need for investments and the uncertainty about how much will need to be invested in the electricity grid.
- We do not know exactly how much will come, where it will come and when, so the risk is that our estimate is conservative. But we can see from the development we have been through since the green transition came into focus that much more is coming than the current estimates cover, says Lars Bonderup Bjørn.
Lack of political direction can be expensive
While it is undeniable that electrification requires large investments, the lack of an overall plan for electrification and the green transition can mean that it will be unnecessarily expensive.
- We will have to dig twice because there is a lack of plans and financial basis for the electrification of Denmark, explains Lars Bonderup Bjørn.
- For us, it is a huge headache that there is no set direction. We know that we need to replace the cables that were laid in the 50s and 60s, but when we lay the new ones, we cannot just dig out for the same needs that there are today. We need to dig out for the needs of the future, and a comprehensive political plan for this is still missing, says Lars Bonderup Bjørn.
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